Author: Donna Mae Rose
Publisher: Outskirts Press, Inc.
ISBN-10: 1-4327-0605-5:   ISBN-13: 978-1-4327-0605-0.

Click Here To Purchase The Way Back: Inside the mind of a multiple personality

Fear Not the Feared

 
Urging her readers to believe that they, too, can overcome, Donna Mae Rose shows how she regathered her Wholeness, after experiencing a lifetime of deep trauma that shattered the core of her being.

Opening with a counseling session between herself and Dr Boyd, the author, a psychiatric technician, tells us of the close and caring relationship that she had with her mother all her life, the great fear that she had of her violent-tempered, mentally and physically abusive father, and the generally loving relationships that she had with her six siblings from an early age.

Her father used to take out his frustrations from his job, in which he felt trapped due to the Depression, on his small children and insecure, frightened wife. Donna’s graphic account of her father’s sexual abuse and rape, that Donna felt scarred her psychologically for life, is realistically portrayed.

The Way Back amounts to a verbatim account of Donna’s counseling sessions with Dr. Boyd. Told in direct speech, the sessions flow naturally and are easy to follow. Donna’s ostensible reason for her counseling sessions with Dr. Boyd was her marital problems with her husband, Bill. However, she later reveals that she had had a nervous breakdown eighteen years before, since when she had spent much time as an outpatient of a mental hospital, having been diagnosed as a schizophrenic.

She describes how her loss of train of thought halfway through her second session with Dr. Boyd, and her awareness of an apparent six-month memory loss, leads Dr. Boyd to inform her that he believes that she has multiple personality disorder.  He concludes that such trance-like episodes are moments of self-hypnosis, which help her to calm down.

By externalizing her innermost anxieties and fears in the form of black bugs and red ants, Donna was able to cope with and adapt to her situation while she was growing up. Donna’s interpretation of the image of the spider, which first appeared on the ceiling of the room while she was being raped, as her eight different personalities is core to an understanding of this text.

Gradually, while undergoing therapy, her other personalities emerge: self-confident and caring Joyce Jordan, the only personality given a last name; promiscuous, enraged Wanda; courageous Carol, who provides a means by which she can protect her innocence; suicidal Mary; childlike Edith Rose, who is capable of expressing attachment; vivacious, outgoing Susie; sanctimonious Beth; Laura, protector of the place where all the other personalities stayed until Donna Mae started to receive counseling from Dr. Boyd; Mildred, who protects Donna when she enters consciousness; spiritually supportive Edgar, who protects Donna from the suicidal tendencies of Mary; and John, who was created to keep Edgar company. Through her acknowledgement and growing understanding of her different personalities, Donna Mae is able to reconcile herself to their existence and to integrate them gradually into her core personality.

This autobiographical account is of particular relevance to anyone who has had to endure childhood trauma and abuse, as well as to anyone who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic or who works with those suffering from dissociate hysteria. Her appreciative portrayal of Dr. Boyd as a compassionate listener might reassure a reader who feels intimidated by the possibility of consulting a psychiatrist that the best in this field are highly accessible and supportive. The Way Back: Inside the Mind of a Multiple Personality Disorder is a tribute to his healing skills.